Who Was She?
by Zina Nevirone
Summary: 15 years after Dana's death, Dana's daughter Charlotte Hope Cruz has been kept in the dark about her mother's past. Until the morning of her birthday when Logan gives her something so sentimental, Dana's old school diaries. Charlie sits down to read them.
1. Chapter 1

Who Was She?

Chap 1

**A/n: The long awaited sequel to both 'I Don't Know' and 'Death Is Upon Me' is finally here!!!!!! And guess what, "Holidays are over people, way over!", much to my dismay!!!! Tonight I should have been at a Games Night at my fav riding school, Lunderton, but NO I had to go to my sister's presentation!!!!! At least I had fun!!!!!**

xx

It's my fifteenth birthday, and yet no-one is happy. It's April Fools Day, and yet everyone in my house is down. This is because fifteen years ago. People won't tell me how or why, but I know she was alive for a while after I was born. All they told me is she's dead. From what I've managed to gather on my own she was only eighteen, but that's all, apart from her name, Dana Cruz. They wrap me in bubble wrap these people I'm surrounded by. The only thing I have so far from her is my half heart locket. According to Tasha my my nineteen year old sister. She also has a half heart locket as well as Logan, Mom's former and last boyfriend. He's a TV/movie producer/director. He's married with two kids of his own. Brianna, his five year old, and Ali, his three year old. He married one of his old school friends, Lola. She's an actress and only married him for publicity, although they pretend to be in love in front of their kids, but drop the act in front of Tasha and me. Logan thinks it's his only chance at a family, but it's a loveless relationship.

Xx

I have pictures of Mom. Brown hair, hazel eyes, slim frame, like me her old school friends say. Zoey took it almost as bad as Logan. Apparently they weren't on speaking conditions until nine months before she died, but she still thinks about her. She comes and sees me once a month and takes me, Tasha and Logan to her grave.

"Charlie," she goes, "One day you'll understand more about Dana than I ever did."

I don't quite know what she means by that, but I hope I will. I doubt me looking like Mom helps to comfort Logan.

Xx

I found old diaries when I was six, but Logan took them away. He's not in charge of me. He can barely keep his own kids under control. Tasha more than happily babysits, but me, I'd rather go down the park and get beat up. Tasha used to go to PCA, she's at uni now, I transferred schools as soon as she finished. I don't fit in anywhere! I'm an outsider. I get beat up and I cover the bruises in makeup. When Logan starts to get suspicious I throw him off with witty remarks.

Xx

I see my dad at the weekends. I would live with him, but he has a new apartment with him, and a new girlfriend every week. He tells me stuff about Mom, He tells me that he loved her, but she never loved him. They had a two year relationship then he cheated on her with a girl named Andrea and that was the end of that.

Xx

When I finally make myself leave my room, I go down the stairs to see Logan sitting with his back facing me.

"Morning Charlie." he chokes.

"Hey, Logan." I drone.

Tasha comes through from the kitchen. Lola keeps threatening to chuck her out, but Logan knows nothing of this. If he knew it would blow his mind. Fact is he met Tasha when she four and they just connected. Me, I keep pushing him away. He's not my dad, and all he does is look after me. That sounds selfish well maybe I am. I don't like this house or family I've been lumbered with.

"Hey, Birthday Girl!" Tasha smiles.

Logan shudders at the mention of my birthday.

"Here's your present!" Tasha chirps ignoring him.

She hands me a red parcel tied with a red bow.

"Thanks." I mutter.

"Here, Charlie. I looked 'em out especially, just watch the last few pages in the red one. They're more from her than me, though." Logan whispers.

He gives me a red chest with gold stars splattered all over. It's really heavy, so

I place it on the ground. I open Tasha's first, knowing it wouldn't be anything special. It's a red makeup bag.

"Thanks, Tasha." I force a smile onto my face.

I kneel down in front of the chest and open the lid carefully. On the inside of the lid is a message. 'To Charlie, happy 15th birthday, luv Dana xx' it reads. Inside are neatly bound notebooks. Mom's diaries in chronological order. I pick up the oldest. It's from her first year at PCA. I put it back gently and do something I haven't done since I was nine. I hug Logan, I hug him tight. Lola comes down the stairs and gazes at the rare sight. Logan hugs me back. He's happy I'm grateful, but sad about Mom. I take back the first diary and sit on the couch. The green leather runs smoothly under my fingers. I open the first page carefully, so I don't tare it. There are teardrops on the page. Dried in, but yellow stains. This is how the first entry goes:

_Dear fuckin' diary,_

_ I don't believe I have to be at this school. It's awful. I made a scene just so I could have bottom bunk, I can't help it that I'm used to sleeping under my bed rather than on it. I needed to, for Dad. My dorm mates are freaks. There's Zoey, who has a perfect life and Nicole who is a total bimbo._

_Xx_

_Zoey is really pissed because she can't join the basketball team. She's the only one on her pathetic team of girl's that can actually play that she put together to beat the boys._

_Xx_

_Oh, the boys! Logan Reese, the rich TV and movie producer's son is incredibly cute, but arrogant, self-centred, self-absorbed, self-obsessed, stubborn and selfish. I hate him, and he hates me. He's head of the boys. Then there's Zoey's new best friend Chase and his best fried Michael. They're okay, I suppose. Chase has the bushiest hair I have ever seen, it's awful. Just as awful as Craig's ugly smirk._

_x Dana x_

_---------_

I need to know more about her. I need to know where Tasha came along. When she fell in love with Logan. Where my dad comes in. When she found out she was pregnant again. What ran through her head in those months before she died. These diaries will give me that information, I hope. I want to carry on reading, but it's time I got to Dad's. I jump in Logan's car as he grabs his keys.

"I really like them, Logan." I smile genuinely as he joins me.

"I told you there from Dana." Logan complains.

"And you could have kept them, you could have forgotten, but you remembered. You remembered after fifteen years."

xx

**A/n: Thank you!!!!! Tohru!!!!!! This is for you as promised!!!!**


	2. Chapter 2

Who Was She?

Chap 2

**A/n: Here we go!!!! Outta control!!!!! Like my bumper car!!!! That was hilarious!!!!**

Xx

Tiffany Brown's fist goes into my eye again.

"Your Ma's dead!" she chants over and over.

I don't move, knowing it as pointless. Her cronies stand beside her laughing at my battered face. She stops looking for reaction.

"This is for being emotionless!" Her hand comes down on my cheek.

I touch it, there's blood.

"Tiffany Brown! Charlotte Cruz! Report to the headmistress' office." Ms. Conners barks her grey eyes darting from Tiffany's innocent face to mine, covered in blood.

I look un-decidedly at Tiffany her face looks set. I walk slowly off to the main building of the school. She pushes past me; her hands are in tight fists. She doesn't look like a tough girl from the back, her black hair trailing behind her like a tail and a slim figure, but her face has a scar down the left cheek, caused by Tasha.

Xx

I sit in a seat by the headmistress' office. There is only me, Tiffany and Mrs. Roberts sitting there. Mrs. Roberts is just as scared of Tiffany as I am and is looking really edgy. She passes me a tissue so I can clean up the blood, but it doesn't make me feel any better. My birthday was three days ago, but I still don't feel any different than I did when I was fourteen. I still feel like an outcast. I've read a lot of Mom's diaries, they've helped me understand. She met Pierre outside a shop where she jumped him when he put his number in her bag. They help me understand how close she was to him, Logan and Dad. She wasn't close to Dad when she died, she hated him. I want to know more. I need to know more. There aren't opinions on her in the diaries, just her point of view, what happened to her, bit that's not what I need to know. I need to know about her as a person, her dying minutes, and her dying days. They only go up to Christmas, Logan knows all about her, but he won't talk, he won't even acknowledge the thoughts.

Xx

Mrs. Keen, the headmistress, is calling us in now. Upon seeing my bloody tissue she shakes her head.

"Fighting again Miss Cruz? Hmm?" she rolls her eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses.

"She attacked me, Miss." Tiffany spoke from behind me, her own eyes shining with innocence.

"And somehow she came off worse than you, Miss Brown. I doubt that." Mrs. Keen coughed to clear her throat, "Just look at those bruises, and that cut. Your nails must have sunk deep into her that time. But you, not even a new scratch."

Tiffany scowls defeated.

"As a punishment, how does another week's exclusion sound hmm?" Mrs. Keen is already printing out the letter for Tiffany's parents, "Mrs. Roberts? Will you ring Mr. and Mrs. Brown and tell them Tiffany's on another exclusion?"

Mrs. Roberts face broke into a smile as she nodded. Taking Tiffany by the arm she walked out.

"Now, Charlotte, I'm afraid we'll have to send you home too. School policy as you know." Mrs. Keen continued.

My eyes immediately drop to my feet. I can't go home, Logan mustn't know, he's working from home today. Lola's there too, and Tasha. Thanks Tiffany, you pick this day to get caught beating me up.

Xx

I hide in my room for the remainder of the day, I can't take the questions. I even barricaded the door, so they can't get in. my tekemate sits flashing on my bed and I sit on my rug by the window. My tekemate keeps flashing and playing that annoying cornflake jingle, which I only got to fit in at PCA and can't be assed changing now. The flashing and music continues into the night, before I know it, it's dark outside and I'm asleep on the rug.

Xx

I dream about Mom, how I imagine her to have been.

_She smiles at me, her hazel eyes glistening happily, her caramel curls bouncing on her shoulders. Logan is there too, he's happy, I've never seen him truly happy, not even when his Brianna and Ali were born. Tasha's there, looking like Mom's mini-me, but with blue eyes. I can pretend for one or two minutes that this is reality and not the hell-hole that really is._

Xx

I wake with a start as a different song starts to play on my tekemate; I gave that song to one person and one person only. I snatch up the tekemate and sure enough their flashes Ayesha's name. I open the text quickly; Ayesha rarely speaks to me, let alone texts, nowadays. We used to be best friends, and then she became friends with Karen, another girl who beats me up.

oOo

_Hey C,_

_K is totally pied that Tiffany beat u up nd not her!!!!!_

_How'd Logan take it neway, coz we knw u gt sent home 2day???_

_K!!! xx_

oOo

That bitch! She doesn't really care; she just wants the gossip first. I'm tired anyway, that sleep wasn't refreshing at all.

Xx

In the morning the house seems quiet, too quiet. There are not even the screaming objections of Ali or the out of tune singing of Brianna. I pull back my barricade and open the door. Not even checking in the bedrooms I hurry down the stairs. There's no-one in the living room, the kitchen or the 'adult' room. I go back up the stairs, they're not there either. I don't know what to do, I don't know where they are.

Xx


	3. Chapter 3

Who Was She?

Chap 3

**A/n: Life Sucks (And I Can Prove It)!! Lol!!**

Xx

As I walk through the house I can't help thinking about my mom. She had been alone for a lot of time in her childhood; her dad wasn't right in the head. Grand-mere, didn't care about him, she didn't care about Mom for awhile. I'm scared now, Tasha should be here, and they all should be here. I've never wanted Logan more. This house is so big that it is so scary when empty. I have never watched the TV alone, I have never been truly alone, because of the complications of my brain, but I'm stuck in this house with no idea where my sister and my mom's ex-boyfriend and his family are. I sit on the couch with my legs crossed, doing nothing. I miss them now; I need them now more than ever.

My mom's photo is on the coffee table where it has never been before, it the darkened frame. I pick it up in my hands and stare into her beautiful green eyes, a tear rolls down my cheek. She looks happy with her arms around Logan's neck. He looks so happy, so carefree. I can't believe that Mom dumped us on him. It seems so selfish, she left Tasha when she was a baby on Grand-mere, she didn't think about it. Maybe she didn't think about me or Logan. It would make me cry to find out she never thought of me, to find out she died without ever thinking, that I, her daughter, would grow up to resent her because she left me in this world without even an inkling of to who she was. I do resent her for that, but in so many ways I long to know her. I long to know why she thought it would be better for me to live and not with her, my mother. In that respect my mom was never selfish. But how did she think I could live without ever knowing her? How did she think I would live knowing my mom had left me as a baby? How did she think I would live knowing I was the reason Tasha has no mom, Logan has no love, Pierre has no best friend, and my dad feels guilty.

If only life was as simple here as it is in Lola Land.

Xx

**A/n: Soz 4 tha short rambling chap!!**


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